Well, why SHOULDN'T the Wiener Guy be a playuh (THE playuh?) in these presidential election follies?

Oh great, just what these 2016 presidential follies needed -- the Wiener Guy is back!

"There must be some recognition that it is important not to allow an investigation to become hijacked by the red-hot passions of a political contest . . . . It is antithetical to the interests of justice, putting a thumb on the scale of this election and damaging our democracy."

-- former U.S. Deputy AGs Jamie Gorelick and Larry Thompson
in a WaPo op-ed, "James Comey is damaging our democracy"

by Ken

Admit it, you thought this election couldn't get any wackier. You thought that if there was really an October surprise, it would be something, you know, of some election-tipping-worthy seriousness? Well, surprise!

And maybe it figures. What could be crazier, and therefore more appropriate to this election, than having it turn out that Anthony Weiner is a playuh, maybe the ultimate playuh, because the new e-mail follies are all about (or around, or somehow to do with) you-know-who. That's right, Anthony "Maybe I Can't Keep It in My Pants 'Cause I Don't Wanna" Weiner.

Of course the Billion-Dollar Loser knows that there's no "great crime" buried in the latest e-mails, any more than there was in any of the other e-mails that have bobbed to the surface in this weird election season. Of course he can hope. But as someone who is surely familiar with both crimes and great crimes (he probably tried to ensure that among the dozen or so crimes that the commits, or that are committed on his behalf, before he oozes his caracass out of bed each morning that there's at least one great crime.

And I suppose you can't blame a guy for hoping. But he surely knows better. Luckily for him, though, he also knows it doesn't matter, because in the swamps of human denigration where he's been slopping together his electoral constituency, reality doesn't count for anything. Has any presidential candidate ever had a lower opinion of the voters he's hoping to enlist? (If you're wondering how a man who may be the most thoroughly corrupt human in the history of the species dares to denounce Hillary C for "corruption," I'm afraid I can't help.)

Anyway, now with FBI Director J. Edgar Comey joining Russian Prexy Vladimir Putin and WikiLeaks Big Brain Julian Assange out on the campaign trail stumping for the Biggest Loser, it somehow seems only right that it falls to the Wiener Guy to push him over the top. Go, Team The Donald!

Speaking of Jimsy the FBI plodder, even making due allowance for the delicacy of the position he's been put throughout these serial e-mail follies, one notes that he seems to have found his way consistently to a mediocre choice -- and now to a fairly appalling one. Which, in case you haven't seen it, has inspired a pair of former U.S. deputy AGs, from administrations of both parties, to register a resounding dissent in a Washington Post op-ed (links onsite).

James Comey is damaging our democracy


Washingtonpost.com caption: "In this July 14, 2016 file photo, FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington."

By Jamie Gorelick and Larry Thompson | October 29 at 11:29 PM

Jamie Gorelick served as deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997 and is a supporter of Hillary Clinton. Larry Thompson served as deputy attorney general from 2001 to 2003 and signed a letter from a group of former Justice Department officials in Republican administrations calling for Donald Trump’s defeat.

The Justice Department has a proud history of enforcing the federal criminal law without fear or favor, and especially without regard to politics. It operates under long-standing and well-established traditions limiting disclosure of ongoing investigations to the public and even to Congress, especially in a way that might be seen as influencing an election. These traditions protect the integrity of the department and the public’s confidence in its mission to take care that the laws are faithfully and impartially executed. They reflect an institutional balancing of interests, delaying disclosure and public knowledge to avoid misuse of prosecutorial power by creating unfair innuendo to which an accused party cannot properly respond.

Decades ago, the department decided that in the 60-day period before an election, the balance should be struck against even returning indictments involving individuals running for office, as well as against the disclosure of any investigative steps. The reasoning was that, however important it might be for Justice to do its job, and however important it might be for the public to know what Justice knows, because such allegations could not be adjudicated, such actions or disclosures risked undermining the political process. A memorandum reflecting this choice has been issued every four years by multiple attorneys general for a very long time, including in 2016.

When they take their vows and assume office, senior officials in the Justice Department and the FBI become part of these traditions, with an obligation to preserve, protect and defend them. They enjoy a credibility established by generations of honorable public servants, and they owe a solemn obligation to maintain that credibility. They are not to arrogate to themselves the choices made by the Justice Department and honored over the years.

As part of that obligation, they must recognize that the department is an institution, not a person. As its temporary custodians, they must neither seek the spotlight for their own advancement nor avoid accountability for the hard decisions they inevitably face. Justice allows neither for self-aggrandizing crusaders on high horses nor for passive bureaucrats wielding rubber stamps from the shadows. It demands both humility and responsibility.

As former deputy attorneys general in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, we are troubled by the apparent departure from these standards in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server. First, the FBI director, James B. Comey, put himself enthusiastically forward as the arbiter of not only whether to prosecute a criminal case — which is not the job of the FBI — but also best practices in the handling of email and other matters. Now, he has chosen personally to restrike the balance between transparency and fairness, departing from the department’s traditions. As former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger aptly put it, “There’s a difference between being independent and flying solo.”

At the same time, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch — nominally Comey’s boss — has apparently been satisfied with advising Comey but not ordering him to abide by the rules. She, no doubt, did not want to override the FBI director in such a highly political matter, but she should not have needed to. He should have abided by the policy on his own.

Events as they have played out point to the value of the department’s traditions. Having taken the extraordinary steps of briefing the public, testifying before Congress about a decision not to prosecute and sharing investigative material, Comey now finds himself wanting to update the public and Congress on each new development in the investigation, even before he and others have had a chance to assess its significance. He may well have been criticized after the fact had he not advised Congress of the investigative steps that he was taking. But it was his job — consistent with the best traditions of the Department of Justice — to make the right decision and take that criticism if it came. Department officials owe the public an explanation of how events have unfolded the way they have. There must be some recognition that it is important not to allow an investigation to become hijacked by the red-hot passions of a political contest.

As it stands, we now have real-time, raw-take transparency taken to its illogical limit, a kind of reality TV of federal criminal investigation. Perhaps worst of all, it is happening on the eve of a presidential election. It is antithetical to the interests of justice, putting a thumb on the scale of this election and damaging our democracy.

EXTRA! BILLION-DOLLAR LOSER CONFIRMS
THAT HE'S QUITE THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE

In response to questions from reporters, Republican presidential candidate Donald "The Billion-Dollar Loser" Trump confirmed that "obviously" he had quit the race when he announced that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, is "obviously guilty."

"I didn't think that needed to be spelled out," he said. "Obviously it would be unthinkable to ever allow someone who could say such a thing to have any kind of involvement in the workings of the system of justice in the United States of America. That would just be unthinkable, obviously."

Asked suggesting that he had been quoting his friend Russian President Vladimir Putin, "The Donald" was asked when he had spoken to Mr. Putin, and he acknowledged, "Nah, he never returns my calls."

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"In the Loop" fans provide alternate names for Anthony Weiner's planned Rockaways restaurant-and-training project

by Ken

"When news broke that former congressman Anthony Weiner’s latest career endeavor would be a New York City restaurant/culinary school," Washington Post "In the Loop" master Al Kamen wrote Friday, "we felt compelled to help somehow. It's the least we could do for all the fodder he’s provided over the years."

But, as I reported at the time ("Doesn't Carlos Danger need a better name than "Rockaway Restoration Kitchen" for his entry into the restaurant world?"), the Loopsters worried about the name so far slotted for this worthy eatery plus training and jobs-creation project planned by the former congressman for the Hurricane Sandy-devastated Rockaways in Queens (part of his old congressional district): Rockaway Restoration Kitchen, explaining:

The key to any successful business (other than a good product) is a catchy name. So we turned to our brilliant Loop Fans to come up with the perfect one.

It seems that a lot of those "Loop Fans" couldn't, or at least didn't, avoid "the obvious phallic joke." However, as requested, "they kept it clean, mostly." From those Loop Fans' offerings, the "Loop" team aided by a Post-colleague judging panel of Karen Tumulty, Katie Zezima and David A. Fahrenthold came up with a field of five.

The winners (in no particular order) are:

● Outfront Steakhouse. Submitted by Department of Transportation program manager Kevin Dopart of the District.

● SELFIE’s. Submitted by environmental consultant James Cohn of New York.

● Chez Penisse. Submitted by University of Florida physics professor Peter Hirschfeld of Gainesville, Fla. (A second submission came in with this name, but we awarded it to the first entry.)

● Politics and Pose. Submitted by marketing consultant Holly Hemphill of Falls Church.

● The Weiner’s Circle. Submitted by retiree Hal Handerson of Arlington.

(I guess we'll have to use our imaginations for name suggestions that don't "keep it clean.")

An "Honorable Mention" was also awarded:

We often get entries from overseas, and although he did not win, we want to recognize our very first entry this go-round from Ray Comeau, a retiree in Chongqing, China. He proposed Mr. Winkie’s Kishka, and explained: “The first part of the name sounds close to well-known American chains Wendy’s (the hamburger chain) and Wimpy (the hamburger-eating Popeye character). The second part of the name honors Weiner’s ethnicity (Jewish) and love of a good sausage.”

TO BE SERIOUS FOR A MOMENT

There is some serious thinking behind the project, and I don't want to give that short shrift. Here's the mission statement from the Rockaway Restoration Kitchen website:

Rockaway, Queens, is a part of New York City that is home to chronically unemployed and was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The mission of Rockaway Restoration Kitchen is to help meet some of the needs that have arisen from these and other challenges faced by the community. Our goal is to provide a comfortable neighborhood restaurant with healthy, locally sourced food that satisfies the hunger of Rockaway residents, attracts visitors and serves up dignity and self-sufficiency by serving as a hands on training ground to provide skills, real experience and job placement in the culinary industry.

Provided below are the primary challenges and needs that we hope to overcome and fulfill.

Challenge One: The restaurant, catering, hotel and food production industries face a shortage of experienced kitchen help.
The Need: A reliable pipeline of trained and motivated workers with a resume that includes restaurant work.

Challenge Two: Thousands of the chronically unemployed lack the training and necessary on-the-job experience to gain and hold jobs in the culinary field.
The Need: A training program that offers classroom skills training and work in a real working restaurant kitchen.

Challenge Three: Rockaway New York, a community devastated by Hurricane Sandy, has a high unemployment rate and too few quality healthy restaurant options.
The Need: An affordable, comfortable, healthy alternative to the few fast food and pizza joints.

#

Doesn't Carlos Danger need a better name than "Rockaway Restoration Kitchen" for his entry into the restaurant world?

Does it get any more macho? Well, it might if Anthony W didn't look like he just found out he inadvertently sent a penis picture to the pope. Meanwhile, Mikey S looks like he just threatened to throw the pope off his balcony.

"To be frank, Weiner would not be the first scandal-ridden New York pol to have tried his hand at the restaurant business. Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) of 'break you in half like a boy' fame, once ran a failed health food restaurant in Manhattan."

"Maybe they can trade notes?"

-- from Colby Itkowitz's Thursday Washington Post "In
the Loop"report, "New Weiner career? Food service"

by Ken

Yes, Colby, that was the first thing I thought of when I saw your Thursday report about former Rep. Anthony Weiner, aka Carlos Danger (or perhaps better, as inspired tweeter Ana Navarro suggested, Antonio Estupido), finding his way into the restaurant business. How could you not think of him as following in the footsteps of our favorite congressional kneecapper, Staten Island's "Mikey Suits" Grimm?

Judging from the results, it wouldn't be quite accurate to say that Mikey Suits went into the restaurant business, since his joint -- Palooka's Healthy Food Shangri-La, or whatever it was called during the blink of an eye it was open -- seemed to be more of a crime scene for financial chicanery than a money-making hospitality enterprise, and of course the scene of elaborate ongoing criminal investigations. (Okay, I looked it up. Mikey S's eatery was called Healthalicious. The palookas were on the premises -- though not apparently in any great quantity -- not in the name. See my April post "No fair! We the people demand perp-walk pix of 'Mikey Suits' Grimm! (And where's Rudy Giuliani when you need him?") And in fairness to Anthony W, what he apparently has in mind is something quite different from a hangout for palookas with pretensions.

But still, do all these congressfellows have an inner Bobby Flay trying to get out? Or is it just these queasily hyper-macho boys -- Anthony W with his compulsion to share his penis with the world and Mikey S with his craving to toss uppity reporters off of balconies.

That said, Anthony W's project really does sound like a noble effort to make a difference in the Sandy-devastated Rockaways of Queens. But as Al Kamen suggests in his follow-up "In the Loop" report, "Rockaway Restoration Kitchen" sounds almost criminally humdrum for an enterprise spearheaded by the Man Who Would Be Carlos Danger.

Let's let Al take it from here.

In the Loop
A Loop contest! Weiner’s planned
restaurant needs a better name

By Al Kamen
August 11 at 7:00 AM

It was but a year ago that disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner lost his New York mayoral bid, undone by his annoying penchant for sexting self-portraits to a number of women –even after he resigned his congressional seat a year earlier for that same deplorable habit.

But as we reported Thursday afternoon, citing a report in The Rockaway Times, Weiner has a new, and really quite commendable, project: establishing the “Rockaway Restoration Kitchen,” which is described in an Idealist.org ad as a non-profit “healthy, sustainable restaurant in a hard luck community to provide training, on-the-job apprenticeship and placement in the culinary and food service sector for unemployed New Yorkers.”

A wonderful idea. But the name? Rockaway Restoration Kitchen? This will not draw customers. You can’t even tell what kind of food it will serve.

There has to be a better name! (Loop fans know where this is going.)

Yes, it’s the “Name the Weiner Restaurant” Contest! It needs to be catchy, able to attract customers. Perhaps a particular cuisine? (Remember, he allegedly used that spectacular alias, Carlos Danger, so maybe south-of-the-border fare might work.)

Winners get one of our highly coveted Loop T-shirts.

Send entries — only one suggestion per person — to intheloop@washpost.com. Be sure to provide your name, profession, mailing address and T-shirt size (M, L or XL), in case you’re a winner.

You must include a phone number — home, work or cell — to be eligible. Entries must be submitted by noon, Aug. 18.

(Please keep your entries, at the very most, PG-13).

Note that last point -- there's territory into which we just can't venture here. Still, "PG-13" affords a certain latitude, doesn't it? I think we might slip "Carlos Danger's Penis Palace" through, for example. Just remember, the key is to come up with a name that's even more grabalicious than, you know, Healthalicious (RIP).

#

"David Letterman's Top 10 Political Top 10 Lists" (Jaime Fuller, washingtonpost.com)

"Extra Credit": Not a Top Ten List, but . . .


Remember the time Young Johnny McCranky blew Dave off the night he had suspended his campaign because of campaign finances, and appeared with Katie Couric the same day? Jaime Fuller writes: "It wasn't a good idea, as Letterman proceeded to spend the entire time reserved for his McCain interview for a long roast of the presidential candidate, saying 'somebody must have put something in his Metamucil.' He recruited Keith Olbermann -- McCain's replacement -- to join the grumblefest."

by Ken

As you probably know, on Thursday's Late Show with David Letterman Dave announced that he'll be retiring from the show in 2015 (more or less). To celebrate the occasion, the Washington Post's Jaime Fuller compiled for "The Fix" what she calls "David Letterman’s Top 10 Political Top 10s." I thought we should share some of them.


10. RICK PERRY



"Top Ten Rick Perry Excuses"

10. “Actually there were three reasons I messed up last night. One was the nerves, two was the headache and three was, and three, uh, uh. Oops.”

9. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think things went well.”
8. “Hey, I was up late last night watching 'Dancing With the Stars.'”

7. “I thought the debate was tonight.”

6. “Hey, listen. You try concentrating with Mitt Romney smiling at you. That is one handsome dude.”

5. “Uh, El Nino?”
4. “I had a five-hour energy drink six hours before the debate.”
3. “I really hoped to get on my favorite talk show, but instead I ended up here.”
2. “Hey, I wanted to help take the heat off my buddy Herman Cain.”
1. “I just learned Justin Bieber is my father.”


9. PAUL RYAN

"Top Ten Little-Known Facts About Paul Ryan"

10. He's only the 23rd white guy to become Republican Vice-Presidential nominee
9. Was runner-up on season 3 of "The Bachelorette"
8. Always shampoos once, conditions twice

7. Got his start in Congress as John Boehner's tanning boy
6. Claims to be "a lady in the street, but a freak in the sheets"
5. Like the rest of America, wonders what Romney is hiding in his tax returns
4. Has a good feeling about this Jennifer Aniston marriage working out

3. Eats nothing but plants, berries, and small turtles

2. Even before working at Oscar Mayer, had reputation for "driving the Weinermobile"

1. Born in Kenya


8. ANTHONY WEINER



"Top Ten Other Anthony Weiner Pseudonyms"

10. Carlos Dangler

9. Peter Tweeter
8. Eliot Spitzer
7. Perv Griffin
6. James Wand
5. Dwight Thighsenhower

4. Throb Reiner

3. Donald Hump
2. The Notorious Not-So-B.I.G.
1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejunk


7. NEWT GINGRICH

"Top Ten Signs Newt Gingrich Is Losing It"

10. New campaign slogan: "What up, Gingsta?"

9. Since losing Iowa, he's married and divorced eight different women.

8. Has EMTs standing by at all times.

7. Quit campaign to buy a zoo with Matt Damon -- still in theaters, people.
6. When he hears the word "caucus," drops his pants and says, "I'll show you a caucus!"
5. In every speech, he attacks Walter Mondale.
4. His New Year's resolution? Be doughiest man he can be.

3. Makes cameo appearance in Casey Anthony's new video blog.

2. Losing it? When did he ever have it?
1. Claims he was born in Kenya.


6. MITT ROMNEY

"Top Ten Things Mitt Romney Would Like to Say to the American People"

10. "Isn't it time for a president who looks like a 1970s game show host?"
9. "What's up, gangstas? It's the M-I-Double Tizzle."
8.  "I have no proof, but I have a feeling Canada is planning something."

7. "Actually, I'm only here to meet Tom Cruise."

6. "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!"
5. "My new cologne is now available at Macy's. It's Mittstified."
4. "I just used all my campaign money to buy a zoo with Matt Damon."

3. "I can do a lot, but even I can't fix the Indianapolis Colts."
2. "Newt Gingrich? Really?"
1. "It's a hair piece."


5. ROB FORD

Five lists!


4. DAN QUAYLE

"Many a Top Ten list," including --

"Dan Quayle's Top Ten Pickup Lines"

10. Didn't we almost flunk out of school together?

9. How about a drink with a historical footnote?
8. I sure would have gone to Vietnam if the Cong looked like you

7. Can my father buy you a drink?

6. You could close your eyes and pretend I'm Jack Kemp

5. I think I saw Elvis last week at the Stuckey's on the interstate
4. Look! I've got a bunch of balloons with my name on them!

3. A girl like you could help a guy forget the irreparable damage he's done to the Republican Party

2. I'll be Vice President after we beat Dukakis and Lloyd Bridges
1. Why, yes, I am Pat Sajak

"Top Ten Reasons Dan Quayle Would Make a Great President"

10. Would not seem like brainy egghead when visiting nation's injured professional wrestlers. 

9. Boyish good looks would cause Mrs. Gorbachev to fall in love, reveal state secrets.
8. His willingness to don inspiring Eagle Man costume on national holidays. 

7. Secret Service agents wouldn't have to take their jobs so seriously.
6. Hilarious hijinks when mischievous staffer tells him to go stand in corner of Oval Office.
5. State of the Union Address would be three minutes tops. 

4. Might really enjoy the part where after signing a bill into law, he gets to pass out a lot of souvenir pens. 

3. Would satisfy little-known constitutional requirement that Chief Executive be "dumb as a tree."
2. We'd get to watch him grow up on TV. 

1. Impossible to pick himself as Vice President.


3. VLADIMIR PUTIN


2. HILLARY CLINTON




"Top Ten Reasons Hillary Loves America"

10. We have more Dakotas than every other country combined.
9. Canadian bacon: soggy and chewy; American bacon: crisp and delicious!
8. Thanks to the Internet, I can order new pantsuits 24/7 – there’s your pantsuit joke, Dave. Are you happy now?
7. 232 years and not one cookie shortage.
6. TiVo
5. Did I mention the soup? Mmm, soup.
4. Did you know former President Teddy Roosevelt was an American?
3. Where else can you get a car painted for $29.95?
2. Is this the part where I say, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”?
1. Apparently anyone can get a talk show.


1. SEN. BARACK OBAMA (January 2008)



"Top Ten Barack Obama Campaign Promises"

10. "To keep the budget balanced, I'll rent the Situation Room to Sweet Sixteens"

9. "I will double your tax money at the craps table"
8. "I'll appoint Mitt Romney Secretary of Looking Good"
7. "If you bring the gator to the White House, I'll wrassle it"
6. "I'll put Regis on the nickel"

5. "I'll rename the tenth month of the year Baracktober"

4. "I won't let Apple release the new and improved iPod the day after you bought the previous model" (So much has changed since 2008...)

3. "I'll find money in the budget to buy Letterman a decent hairpiece"

2. "Pronounce the word nuclear, nuclear"

1. "Three words, Vice President Oprah"

#

Carlos Danger for mayor? Well, anybody but Antonio Estupido!

by Ken

When I looked this morning at Aaron Blake and Ruth Tam's "The best Carlos Danger tweets" on washingtonpost.com's "The Fix" blog, I swear there was one genuinely funny one in addition to Ana Navarro's too-true-to-be-funny one. Now I can't find the funny one, though Angrygeek's might qualify if it were reworded a little, maybe to: " 'Carlos Danger'? Somewhere Michael Vick is saying, 'See? Ron Mexico wasn't so dumb after all.' "

Kind of obvious, but maybe closest to my gut reaction, is Blake Hounshell's conjuring of a write-in campaign for our man Danger. I mean, Carlos Danger might at least be a legitimate joke candidate -- in the tradition, say, of Mario "The Hanging Judge" Procaccino, the man who gave us mayoral-primary runoffs in New York, and as the Democratic candidate for mayor in 1965 to elect Republican John Lindsay. Whereas Anthony Weiner as a mayoral candidate . . . well, at this point he's barely even a joke.

Comes the news that Estupido was still at his sexting antics for at least three months after the initial public disgrace that led to his resignation from Congress, now under the nom de texte "Carlos Danger." And are we sure that he wasn't also playing under other, possibly even more idiotic playnames?

No, that's not possible. I don't mean it's impossible that our Antonio may have been text-frolicking under other names. Just that they couldn't possibly be more idiotic than Carlos Danger. I mean, let's say that we decided for some reason to hold a contest for the stupidest and most preposterous fake name our guy could have assumed? We would have to call it off before we started, because stupider and more preposterous than Carlos Danger it just doesn't get.

At this point my mind wanders to questions like: Who, and for what reason, might any registered Democrat in New York City even consider voting for Estupido? Except maybe as a protest vote -- but even that seems a stretch. There are legitimate candidates in the primary field, after all.

Another, even more obvious question: What in heck was going through the yutz's primitive brain?

Actually, for that question I think we have a plausible answer provided by Fred Berlin, director of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital, as told to the Post's Lena H. Sun and Meeri Kim ("Anthony Weiner’s sexual behavior may have underlying issues"). His sexual compulsions may be such that he just can't help myself.

Evem as Dr. Berlin -- making clear, of course, that he can't speak to Estupido's particular case -- had begun to set out his case, I began thinking of kinds of compulsions I know 100 percent it's wrong to give in to but often do anyway, it didn't take long to come up with the most obvious one: food. And sure enough:

[Berlin] likened it to someone who is going on a diet to lose weight. That person may be convinced they want to stop overeating when they’re not hungry, he said. But when they get hungry, they may not be able to stop themselves and end up gorging. The person is genuinely sorry afterward, he said, and then the cycle repeats.

And if there's any driving compulsion that for many of us, at least, is even harder to resist than the food one, it's sex.

Berlin and others said that in the past five to six years, they have seen a significant increase in the number of patients with problematic sexual behavior related to the Internet, including inappropriate chatting, accessing inappropriate images and engaging in virtual relationships.

In addition to making it easier for people to say and do things they might not otherwise, the Internet has become a delivery system through which someone can get access to an unlimited number of partners and sexual fantasies, said Michael Radkowsky, a District psychologist who treats couples and individuals with sexual issues. The human brain is wired to look for sex and sexual partners, he said.

It's taken me a lot of years to really understand why virtually all religions invented by mankind, and an almost equally high percentage of systems of social organization, are so phobic about sex in general (as well as in the particulars!). Sure, we all understand that sexual urges are powerful. Now finally I'm grasping just how dangerously powerful: When it comes to crunch time, far too many people, especially of the male persuasion, will give in to a sexual temptation over any other kind. If you're running a religion (I wanted to write "religious scam" but stayed my hand), you just can't have that. Unless, that is, you've structured it to incorporate this behavioral reality, as religious scammers have tried to do from the beginning of scamtime.

This isn't intended as any sort of defense of Estupido. The other day I referred to him as a dick, and I'm comfortable with that. Yutz as well. And let's not kid ourselves. Plenty of men have attained high political office with sexual compulsions far more grandiose than Antonio's. Anyone remember a fellow named JFK? And he wasn't fooling around online.

I don't know how JFK would have handled it if he had found himself having to account publicly for his sexual misbehavior. Alas, we know only too well how Estupido has handled it -- twice now. And it's the root-level stupidity and dishonesty of his responses that for me push him beyond the most generous limits of reasonableness as an ongoing political figure. It's not often that NYC's three daily newspapers agree on anything, and their chains of reasoning are hardly identical, but when you've got the Times, the Daily News, and the Post all urging Carlos the Dangerman to take a hike, I think the curtain has come down, or should have come down, on the burlesque of Estupido's candidacy.


ONE QUESTION I'M NOT ASKING . . .


. . . is how dare his wife, Huma Abedin, stand up there on that platform once again and defend the yutz?

I feel bad for her. I feel worse for their little boy. For the Post's "She The People" blog, journalist-author Sheila Wellersaying that she's "always admired Abedin’s utter professionalism," wrote ("Two cheers for the beleaguered Huma Abedin") about that admiration:

During Hillary Clinton’s 2007 primary campaign against Obama, she was there, as Hillary’s chief aide, like a rock. It takes a lot -- smarts, strategy, humility, perspective, diplomacy, and omnibus emergency competence -- to be the first aide, the "body person," the chief assistant to a powerful, complicated, and large-ego’d eminence. You have to be ready to do everything, and find anything, including answers your boss routinely can’t find, 24/7. Through a family member, I’ve seen that kind of job up close. It takes a lot of character.

But what really nailed it for me with Abedin was when, smack in the middle of her husband’s sex-texting scandal Part I, two years ago, she came home from a long, multi-Mideast-country foreign trip with Secretary of State Clinton, three or four months pregnant. Clinton’s plane arrived at the D.C. airport at around 6 a.m. Jet-lagged, pregnant, scandal-beset, at the end of a gargantuan work trip and a very long plane ride, and with the paparazzi hounding her car, Abedin drove herself to home, right into her parking garage.

This wasn’t martyrdom to me (though I did feel sorry for her and wondered why her boss hadn’t seen fit to send a driver to the airport for her. It was too peripheral a gesture (people were angry at her husband, not her) to have been some damage control ploy. I saw it as steady, business-as-usual demeanor, even in the midst of bizarre crisis. Hats off to her.

With regard to this latest round of humiliation, Weller writes:

I certainly joined the chorus of women (and men) loudly asking, “Why is she staying with him?” during Weinger-gate Part I. Now that chorus is deafening -- and so is the contempt being shown to Abedin. I think the latter is wrong. He, not she, is the guilty party. Judging a woman for staying in a marital situation that to the outside world appears humiliating is a limited — one could even say boring – criterion. Why make the sole test of a woman’s complexity or depth her decision vis-a-vis a man, when we already know that she is a far better person than that man.

Who didn’t think Elizabeth Edwards was better than John? And who didn’t think she knew it, too? If every wife had to leave every husband she was considered ”better” than, almost no one would stay married.

I'm not suggesting that anyone has to buy Abedin's defense of her husband. But to judge her for making it, for doing what she feels she has to do for her family? That seems to me nuts.

#

For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."

With the stirring message that he's not Weiner, former NYS Gov. Eliot Spitzer presses his bid to become the new Mario Procaccino

The former governor certainly attracted a media mob on his first day back on the campaign trail.

"At one point, an older woman in a straw hat leaned in to the scrum around Mr. Spitzer and declared: "His wife and his daughters understand. Why shouldn't we?" But a few feet away, a man in a blue polo shirt loudly castigated Mr. Spitzer, saying, "You slept with hookers, and you lied and cheated on your family."

-- from "As Spitzer Campaigns, Candidates and
Voters Weigh In," today on NYTimes.com

by Ken

Okay, now this is getting plain silly. Slept with hookers. Lied. Cheated on his family. If by magic one day every officeholder who met this description was magically removed from office, we would suddenly have one hell of a lot of unfilled offices.

Eliot Spitzer's problem, of course, is that he did these things, or rather wound up doing them, in an alarmingly public way -- the "public" part helped along, it has always seemed, by not-exactly-clean-handed political operatives on a mission to bring him down. Downright embarrassing is this from Christine Quinn, who started the NYC Democratic mayoral-primary season a commanding front-runner but the last I looked has fallen into something of a pick-'em with our other cumback kid, Rep. Anthony Weiner, and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson. Also from the NYTimes.com report:

"The question with both Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer is, what have they been doing to earn this second chance?" asked Christine C. Quinn, the speaker of the City Council and the only woman in the crowded top tier of Democratic candidates for mayor.

She added: "What have they been doing since their dishonest behavior? I don't think we see all that much from either of these men that would put them in a position where they would have earned a second chance -- redeemed themselves from their selfish behavior and earned a second chance by New York's voters."

Really now, Madame Speaker, their selfish behavior? Imagine now an even more miraculous day when every officeholder guilty of severely selfish behavior suddenly vanishes. The decks, it seems to me, have now been pretty much cleared.

Not that my vote counts for anything, considering my long history of voting for losing candidates, but I had already been thinking about casting a mayoral-primary vote for Bill Thompson -- who you'll recall came this close to bringing down Mighty Mayor Mike in the last mayoral election, and probably could have if the Mighty One's public-relations machine hadn't persuaded everyone that his Money (I think MMM's Money really has to be capitalized) made him unbeatable -- and I found this reassuring:

A more measured take came from William C. Thompson, Jr., a Democratic mayoral candidate who previously served as city comptroller and readily acknowledged that Mr. Spitzer would be qualified for the job.

"Eliot served as a very strong public servant," Mr. Thompson said as he greeted commuters at an Upper West Side subway station on Monday morning. "Everybody wants to run, feel free to run."

WHY DOES OUR ELIOT EVEN WANT THE JOB?

Well, as we all saw, his teevee career didn't exactly take wing. Or actually, as probably very few of us saw. I mean, whose idea was it to put him on the teevee anyway? Attorney General Eliot commanding camera time to announce the progress of his investigation of important (i.e., rich) people, the kind who don't usually get hassled by public servants -- that was OK TV. But our Eliot as a constantly talking head? Imagine widespread sounds of snoring. Why, to get people to watch you would probably have had to put him on the air with the high-class hooker, and even then she damn well better be hot.

But a former NYS governor running for NYC comptroller?

It's not what you'd call a "glamor" job, the city comptrollership. At its worst, it can be the emblem of political hackery. And its worst would be a man who not only got elected to the job as more or less a joke (at least on the voters) but four years later won the Democratic nomination for mayor with a whopping 32.8 percent of the primary vote, slipping ahead of a slew of more plausible candidates, and going on to run what political commentator Richard Reeves has called "the worst political campaign in American history." And it's thanks to that 32.8 percent primary "victory" that NYC got the primary runoff law in cases where a city-wide candidate fails to get 40 percent of the vote, a law that is likely to play a crucial role in this year's mayoral primary.

Who was that remarkable man? Glad you asked. Because Howie wanted to be sure I mentioned one of our next city comptroller's most memorable predecessors: Judge Mario A. Procaccino.

THE LEGEND OF MARIO PROCACCINO

Look up "machine hack" in your Political Dictionary, and you'll find Mario's picture. The hack's hack, who had been rewarded for a lifetime of hacklike Democratic-party servitude with a minor judgeship in his home borough of the Bronx, and happened to be in the right place at the right time (or the wrong place at the wrong time?) when the NYC Democratic machine had to do some big-time ticket-balancing.

It was a nightmare for the boys in the smoke-filled room: a Jewish mayoral candidate! Speaking of machine hacks, in 1965 then-City Comptroller Abe Beame had paid his political dues and was cashing in his chit: It was his turn for a crack at the top job. But how the dickens did you balance a ticket that was topped by a Jewish mayoral candidate? Under normal circumstances you didn't even have to slot a Jew in for any of the three city-wide offices. Was there any question how the overwhelming majority of the city's Dem voters were going to vote?

What's more, that year there was going to be something different on the Republican side, with the famously charismatic and liberal young Republican congressman John Lindsay making the race. That told the back-room political fixers decided that the way to go was conservative. They already had Abe Beame at the top of the ticket, and his politics were pretty conservative, insofar as a bookkeeper can be said to have politics.

Luckily for the back-room boys, there was an easy choice for the No. 2 job, the City Council president. At a time when the Sixties were beginning to become, you know, the Sixties, when there was already a backlash forming in the country under the banner of "law and order," Queens had a popular district attorney named Frank O'Connor. Get it? You got a Jewish guy from Brooklyn atop the ticket, so here you get an Irish guy from Queens, and somebody people have actually heard of!

But then, but then . . . .

Until finally one of the back-room boys remembered this pain-in-the-ass noboddy judge in the Bronx, Mario A. Procaccino, who had attracted a little attention as a knee-jerk apostle of law and order. Eureka! That's our guy for comptroller: He's Italian (another of the city's crucial ethnic minorities), he's from the Bronx (another of the city's outer boroughs), and he's a "hanging judge" (at least that's how he was known in Howie's and my circle).

The crowning irony is that in that strange year 1965, John Lindsay won the mayoralty atop the Republican ticket but couldn't carry his running mates. (Does anyone remember their names?) So Frank O'Connor became City Council president, and parlayed his new political weight into the 1966 Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1966, when he got creamed by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. (Eventually his party loyalty was rewarded with a judgeship.) And Mario Procaccino became city comptroller, demonstrating that pretty much any lug off the street can do that job.

Which doesn't mean at all that the city comptrollership is a nothing job. It can be and has been done by serious people. The comptroller, most obviously, controls the city's enormous pension-fund investments, which gives him potentially a huge amount of clout. And the comptroller, through his fiscal responsibilities, can at least try to enforce accountability for pretty much everything city government does.

And you know, there may well be more to our Eliot's decision to try to return to public office. Contrary to Speaker Quinn's impression, we may be dealing here with one of our more dangerously un-selfish public servants -- one who actually believes in public service. He did it in his first officeholding career, showing himself as NYS attorney general to have some strong beliefs about the public good, including holding powerful people to account for their misdeeds. It's the message he's trying to convey into all those microphones thrust in his face.

He told DNAinfo's Colby Hamilton that "he's look[ing] forward to using the comptroller's position to go 'beyond auditing paper clips.' "

He pointed to the power the city's pension funds have in the companies they invest in, as well as the ability to audit the city's finances as the tools he planned to use should he get elected.

He added that he wanted to use the city's top financial officer position to play a "affirmative and creative role" in the city, doing "to the comptroller's office like he did to the [attorney general]'s office."

Spitzer said he began thinking about getting into the city comptroller's race only "about 48 hours" before making his decision, but said he'd been interested in the job ever since leaving office.

"It was a decision based on what the office is and what I hope to bring to the office," Spitzer said.

THE EX-GUV INSISTS: I'M NO WEINER!

Obviously the former guv knew that as soon as he made noise about making a race, the name that would be heard throughout the five boroughs and beyond was --

Weiner

Actually, I've taken a little license here in suggesting that our new candidate for comptroller has declared himself the un-Weiner. So far, at least, he's been doing his darnedest to avoid talking about Weiner. According to DNAinfo's Colby Hamilton:

[T]he former governor isn't interested in comparisons.

"I'm not sure it's an issue I will address," he said.

In an interview with DNAinfo New York . . . Spitzer said Weiner's campaign was a factor in his calculations only as he "examined in great detail" the political field in the context of "the entire tableau in the political life that's going on out there."

Spitzer, 54, hoped voters would forgive him for the 2008 scandal that forced him from office.

CAN HE WIN?

At the moment, our Eliot is not wildly popular among NYC Democratic officeholders or party functionaries. His at-the-wire entry into the comptroller race (his first obstacle is going to be assembling the necessary petition signatures by Thursday) has caused confusion and consternation in one race everyone thought wasn't in play. Everyone was quite content with the one declared candidate, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

But then, Eliot's never really been a "party guy." Too independent. Which is a good thing when it comes to setting an agenda that for the average party guy might be uncomfortably disrespectful of established players. But also maybe not so good for a job like his last one in government, when as governor he showed that he didn't exactly play well with others. His short tenure has been largely obscured by its spectacular crash-and-burn, but some of us remember how much ill will he created among people he needed to work with, like the leaders of the state legislature, who not only didn't like taking orders from the new governor but frequently had good reason to question his judgment, something the governor himself seemed seriously disinclined to do, ever.

But the city comptroller's job might actually be a better fit. Being a team player isn't necessarily such an asset for a comptroller who questions both priorities and the way things get done. And he doesn't seem wildly concerned about the minimal institutional support he can expect, with most of that already committed to Scott Stringer. Here's Colby Hamilton:

Spitzer said his past experience in primary battles has left him confident in his chances.

"Endorsements don't vote, voters do," he said.

NEXT UP FOR NYC: DISGRACED EX-ITALIAN 
PRIME MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI?

According to the always-reliable Borowitz Report, the disgraced former Italian prime minster -- "in a stunning bid for a political comeback" -- has revealed that he's "considering running for office in New York City." The report continues:

Mr. Berlusconi announced his intentions after several local polls showed him with a higher approval rating than the candidates currently on offer in the city.

For the disgraced former Prime Minister, the chance to start over again in New York is "like a dream come true."

"In Italy, you make one little mistake, they throw you in jail seven years," he said. "New Yorkers are much more forgiving."

Mr. Berlusconi said that he had not yet decided what office to run for, but was leaning toward public advocate.

"Once they see how good Silvio does at that, they make him mayor or governor, no?" he said, with a booming laugh.

Mr. Berlusconi said that he was unconcerned by rumors of a possible bid for office in New York by another former European politician, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

"Just let him try," he said. "Do I look worried? I am not worried. I walk down street, people tell me thumbs up. New York loves Silvio."

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For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."

OMG, Anthony Weiner is now the NYC mayoral front runner!

Oh no, he's back! (Sorry, no penis pictures available.)

by Ken

Howie will have quite a lot to say about the Supreme Court ruling in the morning, and I'm happy to give the subject a pass. I'd probably just fulminate, and probably calumniate -- the Five Supreme Lunks, that is. (Howie's going to have some point-by-point on them too.)

Instead I thought I'd retreat into the political weirdosphere. From our local online news emporium DNAinfo.com this evening:

Latest Poll Shows Weiner Leading Democratic Mayoral Pack

By Jeanmarie Evelly on June 25, 2013 7:01pm

NEW YORK CITY -- A new poll shows Anthony Weiner leading the race for New York City's Democratic mayoral nominee, according to reports published Tuesday.

A Wall Street Journal-NBC New York-Marist survey of registered Democrats showed the ex-Congressman capturing 25 percent of votes, the Wall Street Journal reported -- edging out longtime frontrunner Christine Quinn, who scored 20 percent of votes.

The results show Weiner has surged in popularity since the last Marist poll in May, when he scored 19 percent of Democratic votes compared to Quinn's 24 percent.

Both Weiner and City Council Speaker Quinn remained largely ahead of their other Democratic rivals, according to the poll, which put former Comptroller Bill Thompson in third with 13 percent of votes, followed by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio at 10 percent and city Comptroller John Liu at eight percent.

According to NBC New York, Weiner also polled slightly better among women: 22 percent of Democrats surveyed said they would vote for him compared to 21 percent who opted for Quinn.

Among registered Republicans, the new poll found former MTA chair Joe Lhota leading the race with 28 percent of votes, compared to rivals John Catsimatidis at 21 percent and George McDonald who scored 10 percent.

Just a couple of weeks ago, from the opposite coast Howie was asking me about the mayoral situation, and in particular whether Anthony Weiner really had a chance. AW had only had to enter the Democratic mayoral field to soar to second place behind the front runner, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. I said I thought he might if Quinn's support faded, and Howie seemed surprised to hear that I thought that possible. I tried to explain that I didn't see any of the candidates having especially solid support, and that no, I didn't imagine much of anybody voting for Quinn because she's a lesbian. A lot of us would be fine with that but don't see it as any reason to support her.

Or much of anyone else, either. It's not that the candidates are necessarily bad people -- though again, I was surprised to learn from Howie that Public Advocaate Bill De Blasio is supposed to be the "progressive" candidate. I suppose it's possible and I just didn't know it. After all, no one knows anything about the public advocate, least of all what he does. I suspect that the public advocate himself doesn't have much idea.

(You say who or what TF is the public advocate? This is actually an interesting question. Okay, maybe not an interesting question, but a question anyways. If you really want to know, I'd be happy to walk you through it, but let me warn you that you're going to have wrap your head around the death of the Board of Estimate, meaning that you'll have to find out what the hell the immensely powerful Board of Estimate was. You still want to know?)

So why not Weiner? At least people know who he is. You might think that that would work against him, but in a field where people don't have strong impressions of most of the candidates, maybe just being known gives you some stature.

The problem Christine Quinn has is that when your support isn't deep to begin with, and your the front runner mostly because people are used to seeing you near the mayor all the time, and kind of assume you're next, it's not easy to withstand having all the other candidates hacking away at you all the time -- the one issue all the other candidates can agree on.

I tried to explain to Howie that all the candidates are searching for an issue that will, well, make people care who they are. You might think, for example, that former City Comptroller Bill Thompson might have some cred considering how close he came to upsetting Mayor Mike in the last election. In all likelihood the only thing that stood between him and victory was the universal assumption that he didn't have a prayer. That turns out to have been Mayor Mike's baseline strategy: spend so much money that everyone would assume that nobody who ran against him had a prayer. Unfortunately for Bill T, that all seems like it happened in another lifetime. Now it's pretty much Bill Who?

One thing it didn't occur to me to say to Howie is that Mayor Mike seems to have kind of sucked the oxygen out of New York City's political life. Which is strange for a city that once had a candidate for one office or another on every street corner, all getting attention of some sort. It's going to be a strange readjustment when we don't have Mayor Mike to tell us what we think anymore.

Bear in mind that if no candidate gets 40 percent of the vote, there has to be a runoff. (This all goes back to 1969 and the primary victory of a not very funny clown of a man named Mario Procaccino with 32.8 percent of the vote. We can go into that too if you like, but trust me, you'd probably rather hear about the Board of Estimate.) The big news is that it looks like we're going to have our old manual-lever voting machines back for the primary and the runoff. Exciting!

The way I crunch the numbers, by the time we get to a runoff (which will be either September 24 or October 1, depending on whether the state legislature ever got around to pushing the date back -- apparently I wasn't paying close attention), the likely turnout should be in the hundreds. If Weiner can't cash in his celebrity at voting levels like that, well, then . . . um, I guess he won't win.

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Buck McKeon’s Congressional Déjà vu-- “My Account Was Hacked!”

Perhaps Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) doesn’t recall the outcome of former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s scandal when he falsely declared his Twitter account was hacked. Understandable, because McKeon has been very busy pestering the defense industry to donate money to his unqualified wife’s Assembly campaign. Yesterday, Roll Call tried to remind him of the result of the recent Weinder coverup in an editorial.

When in doubt, blame faceless hackers.

That’s what Bob Haueter, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Buck McKeon, apparently did last week when asked how a compromising strategy memo made it past the California Republican’s senior staff.

Last Thursday, Haueter was attending a meeting of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County and was asked about how an internal memo that laid out the office’s strategy for addressing the California Republican’s involvement in the latest Countrywide mortgage scandal got out.

“[Haueter] is telling people the Congressional email was hacked and that is how the memo leaked,” an HOH tipster tells us. “This explanation sounds a bit [ex-Rep.] Anthony Wiener-ish to me … .”

Weiner, a Democrat from New York, was caught up in a scandal last year when he claimed that his Twitter account was hacked and pictures of him were sent out. It was not, and he ultimately resigned.

“As we mentioned to you before when you first contacted our office about this issue, the memo you published was an internal staff memo that was never shared nor discussed with the Congressman, and therefore we won’t be commenting any further on this matter,” McKeon spokeswoman Alissa McCurley said when asked for comment about the hacking allegation.

McKeon is one of four Members referred to the House Ethics Committee to discern whether Countrywide provided preferential treatment to influential lawmakers through an exclusive loan program.

The memo included a reference to a California state Assembly race pitting former McKeon aide Scott Wilk against McKeon’s wife, Patricia.

According to the memo, McKeon’s strategy should include “thorough background checks into the relationships between Wilk, [Wilk’s political consultant, Jason Cable Roe], and their recent shady political connections.”

Another prong in the strategy included a note about McKeon’s home-state colleague, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), who also has been embroiled in the Countrywide scandal. “We need to make sure that Elton is made part of the conversation and [his] similar situation is known,” the memo states.

One would assume that hacking a congressional email account is a crime. So has McKeon filed a complaint with the Capitol Police or FBI? Déjà vu, all over again!

McKeon’s spokesperson, Alissa McCurley, commented to Roll Call that the document, “was an internal staff memo that was never shared or discussed with the Congressman.” So one of two circumstances exist, either McKeon’s staff functions independently and didn’t brief the Congressman on the scandal strategy, or she is
lying?

Nonetheless, McKeon’s statements refuse to address the importance of the cover up memo itself, which is now in the hands of the public. The memo went into detail on when to break the story, how to manipulate the local press, and how to divert attention to another Republican, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), who at the time was considering a primary run against McKeon in CA-25.

The campaign memo also suggested “Possible Tough Questions” drawn up from his government-paid communications director, Alissa McCurley, like “How could you not know?” The only way that could be a tough question is if he did know. That brings us to another point. The memo was, at least partly, created by McCurley and addressed to Bob Cochran, Chief of Staff, Bob Haueter, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Tony Marsh, a campaign consultant. All except Marsh are government employees. The crucial and possible criminal aspect of the cover up memo is that it calls to “conduct thorough background checks into the relationships between Wilk, Roe and their recent shady political connections.” Scott Wilk is McKeon’s former District Director and now a candidate for state assembly in AD-38, against-- you guessed it-- McKeon’s wife Patricia. So Buck McKeon is having federal employees investigate an Assembly candidate opponent of Mrs. McKeon.

We all know how the Anthony Weiner scandal ended, with a resignation. I doubt the country will be so lucky, but in November California voters have the opportunity to give McKeon his pink slip. The district is largely a swing district, going for Obama in 2008 and Meg Whitman (Governor) in 2010. With Congressional approvals at an all time low, and anti-incumbency fever sweeping the country, McKeon is in real trouble. It just so happens that Blue America candidate Dr. Lee Rogers (D) is running against McKeon and his campaign is really picking up steam.

We asked Lee what he thought of McKeon’s misappropriation of government employees for campaign business.

“This is the perfect example of why people don’t trust career politicians. McKeon clearly shows his arrogance and corruption. He’s using his position to enrich himself and his family members. There’s already a House Ethics investigation into his favored mortgage from Countrywide, but now I think his misuse of government staff should be added to the investigation.”

DWT has reported on McKeon’s Countrywide scandal, his insider trading, and his shady defense industry relationships as chair of the House Armed Services Committee. Please consider helping Blue America end McKeon’s reign of corruption by donating to Lee’s campaign here.

Is It Too Late For Obama? Are Weprin And Marshall Warnings Of A Catastrophic 2012 For America?

Weprin's got the sleazy-looking little mustache

I grew up in what is now NY's 9th CD, a solidly Democratic Brooklyn district (which wanders into western Queens these days), which is also where Ken, Bernie Sanders, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandy Pearlman, and Chuck Schumer grew up. Even if the 6 of us still voted there, I don't think it would be enough to save the candidacy of David Weprin tomorrow, at least not according to the PPP data released last night, showing Obama's disapproval numbers just killing Weprin, who is losing 47-41. (Even 29% of Democrats want to send Obama a message. And the message is decidedly not what Obama's blinkered campaign manager, Jim Messina, termed a "Washington conversation.")

Radical right teabagger Bob Turner, who brags that he never met a tax loophole he didn't love, who wants to end Medicare and who is best known as the creator of Jerry Springer's trash TV show, looks like he'll be the first Republican to represent the district since Andrew Petersen's single term from 1921 to 1923. More recently the district was represented by Geraldine Ferraro, Chuck Schumer before he ascended to the Senate, and Anthony Weiner before the ridiculous texting "scandal."

When I was growing up, I don't even remember Republicans bothering to run serious candidates. Sometimes some rich Republican lawyer or realtor would run as a vanity candidate. In 2006 and 2008 there were no GOP candidates against Weiner. But something funny happened in 2008. Almost everywhere in the country-- except in the most viciously racist precincts of the Old Confederacy-- Obama was expanding on John Kerry's electoral results from 4 years before. But not in the 9th. Even in neighboring Republican Staten Island (NY-13), Obama did better than Kerry had. The only district in NYC where he did worse than Kerry was the 9th. Gore had beaten Bush 67-30%. Kerry had beaten Bush 56-44%. Obama dropped a percentage point down to 55%, at a time when other districts in the city were going up for Obama by 5 or 6%. At the same time, Weiner had only a third-party opponent and won with 112,205 votes, 93.1% of those cast.

But the GOP sensed a change, and in 2010, at the height of teabag-mania, they ran the self-financing Turner. The result, at a time when disappointed Democrats began staying away from the polls, was a victory for Weiner, 67,011 (60.8%) versus 43,129 (39.2%) for Turner. Although other Republicans have scored more votes than Turner in past elections, no one had ever scored a bigger percentage of votes. The GOP saw an opportunity. Would Democrats who were disappointed in 2010 also be disappointed in 2011? Late polling shows that's exactly what's going to happen. (According the the PPP, even the large Jewish population is ready to vote against Weprin-- 56-39%-- to give Obama the finger.) It looks like Democrats are demotivated and plan to just not vote tomorrow.

The Republican candidate is in a strong position heading into Tuesday’s special election in the heavily Democratic Congressional district formerly represented by Anthony D. Weiner, according to a new poll released on Friday.

Fifty percent of likely voters in New York’s Ninth Congressional District supported the Republican, Bob Turner, compared with 44 percent who supported his Democratic opponent, Assemblyman David I. Weprin, according to the poll (pdf), conducted from Tuesday to Thursday by the Siena Research Institute.

The gap between Mr. Turner and Mr. Weprin lies within the margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. But the poll, which was conducted by telephone of 886 likely voters, suggests that Mr. Turner, who sought to frame the race as a referendum on President Obama, has managed to turn what was expected to be a coronation for Mr. Weprin into a highly competitive contest.

The Ninth Congressional District, which includes portions of Brooklyn and Queens, has three registered Democrats for every one registered Republican. Last year, Mr. Weiner, a Democrat, defeated Mr. Turner by nearly 22 percentage points. But the poll found considerable disenchantment among likely voters: 74 percent said the country was headed in the wrong direction, and only 43 percent had a favorable impression of Mr. Obama, compared with 54 percent who viewed the president unfavorably.

I doubt Obama ever needed much persuading, but his first-- and now his second-- chief of staff (first Rahm Emanuel now William Daley) insisted that he govern as a center-right compassionate conservative. Emanuel is famous for having predicted he could screw over the aspirations of the Democratic coalition because they had nowhere else to go. He was probably shocked when they showed where else they had to go last November: nowhere, all right-- they didn't vote. And it looks like their disdain for Obama and his center-right governing philosophy will cost Democrats the 9th District tomorrow as tens of thousands of progressives sit it out again.

Saturday the NY Times pointed out that Democrats are increasingly worried that the Emanuel/Daley strategy is failing and that their hope that the Republicans will nominate a presidential candidate so extreme and so unpalatable (someone like Bob Turner?) that Democrats will just hold their collective nose and reelect Obama. It isn't working out that way. Even worse than Obama losing, "Some in the party fear that Mr. Obama’s troubles could reverberate down the ballot into Congressional, state and local races," a big turnaround from when "Democrats had entertained hopes of reversing losses from last year’s midterm elections."

Instead of going for a populist, New Deal approach, conservatives in the Democratic Party are doubling down in their anti-working family, pro-Big Business, Republican-light stance. As I pointed out earlier, Nevada party bosses actually shoved a Blue Dog down the rank-and-file's throats and will lose the special election in NV-2 tomorrow.

“In my district, the enthusiasm for him has mostly evaporated,” said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon. “There is tremendous discontent with his direction.”

The president’s economic address last week offered a measure of solace to discouraged Democrats by employing an assertive and scrappy style that many supporters complain has been absent for the last year as he has struggled to rise above Washington gridlock. Several Democrats suggested that he watch a tape of the jobs speech over and over and use it as a guide until the election.

But a survey of two dozen Democratic officials found a palpable sense of concern that transcended a single week of ups and downs. The conversations signaled a change in mood from only a few months ago, when Democrats widely believed that Mr. Obama’s path to re-election, while challenging, was secure.

“The frustrations are real,” said Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, who was the state chairman of Mr. Obama’s campaign four years ago. “I think we know that there is a Barack Obama that’s deep in there, but he’s got to synchronize it with passion and principles.”

There is little cause for immediate optimism, with polls showing Mr. Obama at one of the lowest points of his presidency.

His own economic advisers concede that the unemployment rate, currently 9.1 percent, is unlikely to drop substantially over the next year, creating a daunting obstacle to re-election.

Liberals have grown frustrated by some of his actions, like the decision this month to drop tougher air-quality standards.

And polling suggests that the president’s yearlong effort to reclaim the political center has so far yielded little in the way of additional support from the moderates and independents who tend to decide presidential elections.

“The alarms have already gone off in the Democratic grass roots,” said Robert Zimmerman, a member of the Democratic National Committee from New York, who hopes the president’s jobs plan can be a turning point. “If the Obama administration hasn’t heard them, they should check the wiring of their alarm system.”

Obama has entrusted his reelection efforts to Jim Messina (AKA- Rahm Emanuel Jr.), a Machiavellian clown with only the most superficial political skills and no dedication whatsoever to core progressive values. He told the Times the criticism was largely a “Washington conversation." Is it a "Washington conversation" in NV-2 or NY-9?

Pete DeFazio scoffs at the idea: “I have one heck of a lot of Democrats saying, ‘I voted for him before, don’t know if I can do it again.’”

"Having no agenda when voters face real problems is a bad omen for incumbents" (Matt Stoller)

"People who run government should, at some level, want to govern. They should want to use the power of a democratic channel to solve the nation's problems. In the past 10 years, seeking to govern boldly has been frowned upon -- seen as naive or impossible.

"The result has been political and financial chaos, marked by periods of placid inactivity. It looks like our political leaders could well be seeking this, even as the public needs solutions."

-- Matt Stoller, in "At least Weiner was
a distraction," in Politico

by Ken

In this interesting Politico op-ed (I guess Politico is happy to have progressive content as long as it's pounding on Democrats), Matt Stoller takes off from the point that Weinergate is regretted as having been a "distraction."

"It's worth asking." he says, "how was Weiner a distraction? What is the Democratic agenda he was pulling voters away from?" And he concludes, "The simple fact is: There's no governing agenda being debated. So Weiner wasn't a distraction -- more like an in-flight soft-core movie in between election jockeying by a bored political class."

Of course Weinergate wasn't a distraction from dealing with our problems. It was a distraction from having to address all the problems that aren't being addressed by Beltway bigwigs except the marauding House Republicans, who aren't actually trying to address those problems either but have made them a handy cover for their blitzkrieg to transform the country into the extreme-right-wing hellhole of their wet dreams. But Matt probably wouldn't accept that as an excuse. "People who run government should, at some level, want to govern," he writes. "They should want to use the power of a democratic channel to solve the nation's problems."

He's not encouraged by what he's hearing from a leading candidate to replace departing chief White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, Rebecca Blank, "a 'pragmatic progressive' economist, which apparently means someone who feels bad about the damage caused by the problems they aren't trying to fix."

"Could this economy take off again?" Blank said recently in the National Journal. "The answer is absolutely yes. If you look at corporate profits, if you look at consumer balance sheets [improving] … gas prices are falling. I guess I understand the reason to say, 'Let's see if this economy can do it on its own.'"

On its own? Really? Tell this to the more than 9 percent currently unemployed.

The Right, of course, has been anything but shy about its "solutions," and it doesn't seem to matter that they aren't solutions. At least they're saying something, and thanks to inept Democratic ineptitude, they've succeeded in wrapping themselves in the mantle of "fiscal prudence," slashing horrendously wasteful government spending.

You'd think that even on the crassest level of political expediency, the administration would feel the need to have something to say to the public. Matt points out that before Weinergate the Dems were getting a certain amount of mileage beating up on Paul Ryan's assault on Social Security, which managed to be not only lousy policy but dreadful politics. But that's not exactly the same thing as having a political agenda.

As Howie has reported here extensively, in the days when Master Rahm Emanuel was running the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, candidates who hoped to receive DCCC support were somewhere between encouraged and coerced to take no positions on any issues that might be judged in any way controversial, the thinking (for want of a better word) being that that could only cost support and votes. As far as I know, that "philosophy" has been retained in all essentials by the Master's DCCC successors.

It's a dreadful strategy, destructive not just of soul but of political future. It depends, obviously, on the other guys beating themselves, and on a really primitive level, there's some logic to it, when you consider who and what the other guys are. But eventually the public sort of figures out when it's being filmflammed, or at least stonewalled. Now, it turns out, the Master's philosophy is being applied, not just to campaigning, but to governing.

Here's Matt again:

In 2006, 2008 and 2010, incumbents had no answers for voters who wanted their problems solved. I remember watching [Bill] Clinton give a speech in late 2010, stumping for candidates before the Democratic immolation. Say what you will about the absurdity of his alleged fury toward Weiner, the man can give a stump speech.

Yet, after a half-hour, I still couldn't figure out just what Clinton's reason was for supporting the Democrats. There was something about student loans, and how it was the responsible thing to vote for bailouts. The rest was fuzzy.

Just what would congressional Democrats deliver in 2010 if reelected? They couldn't answer that question for voters. It looked like Democrats in 2009 and 2010 delivered foreclosures and unemployment -- so it's not surprising the public chose another path.

The subtext of 2010 was that Democrats had nothing to run on -- no popular accomplishments, and no agenda for 2011. The GOP faced a similar problem in 2006 and 2008 -- and they also met the voters' wrath. Having no agenda when voters face real problems is a bad omen for incumbents.


There's an obvious problem in that there isn't a whole lot of policy agreement among the political ranks disarrayed against the Right. Still --

[I]t's now 18 months since significant job destruction from the Great Recession ended. What has the Obama administration done?

According to the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds, the first quarter of 2011 saw the destruction of roughly $270 billion more in homeowner equity. That's wealth gone from consumers -- money that can't and won't be spent. The health care bill's main provisions don't kick in until after 2012, and Dodd-Frank's rule-making is still barely off the ground.

Though the 2012 presidential election cycle is likely to have different contours than the midterms, the administration faces the same questions. What are they considering doing about jobs? What have they delivered?

If Blank is any indication, the plan is hope.

Matt suggests "at least three basic ways the administration could shift this dynamic":

One, the solution most cited now, is to use the government's control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to spark a refinancing boom, adding dramatically to consumer purchasing power. These entities could change the net present value test to allow more loan modifications, write-down debt or simply refinance loans with high loan-to-value ratios.

If the administration pushed bank regulators to account for the value of mortgages and home equity lines of credit now on their books, the write-downs would make good commercial sense as well as helping the economy.

The second solution would be to use government power to create jobs. For one example, the administration could dub the Chinese government a currency manipulator and spark domestic manufacturing by shifting our terms of trade.

It's not as if the government is powerless. Though creativity, boldness and wisdom might be required to find the appropriate tools, I'm sure that those who have found the legal authority to attack Libya without congressional authorization could tackle our domestic problems.

Third, the Obama administration could take legislation to create jobs -- an infrastructure bank, or a Works Progress Administration -- and use a barnstorming tour to pressure Congress to go along.

It's not uncommon for presidents to use the bully pulpit to soften congressional opposition -- Ronald Reagan did it regularly. President Barack Obama hasn't done this, but there's no reason his administration couldn't.

By now it's not exactly news that Barack Obama isn't the FDR type -- someone with a palpable sense of crisis, determined to think creatively and throw whatever he could at the crisis -- the country needed at this point in time. And we know by now that when he thinks and speaks, his primary constituency is always the moneyed elites. But again, even on that crassest political level, doesn't he need to have something to say to the rest of the American people?

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As the padlock clanks shut on Weinerworld, it's (scummy) business as usual in mediaville

And Noah says: "Nothing to see here, folks, move along"


MEANWHILE IT'S SCUMMY BUSINESS AS USUAL

Al Kamen tells the tale today in his Washington Post "in the Loop" column of a "veteran television producer and media training expert . . . who runs a media consulting company in Manhattan" (I'll be damned if I'm going to give him publicity by naming him, although Al does) from whom an e-mail arrived yesterday morning, as the world was atremble with anticipation of the resignation of Anthony W. -- Ken

“Hi Al,” the missive began, “Are you looking for quotes on the Anthony Weiner resignation?”

Well, sure.

“As a ‘Media Consultant,’ XXXXX wrote, “I have plenty to add on the topic. I can talk about the ‘Anatomy of a Meltdown’ . . . where did he go wrong? How could he have saved his job?”

XXXXX said he would also analyze “the resignation speech, comparing it to Tiger Woods’ speech and others” in similar situations.

“Here are a few things I can say,” he wrote. On the question of image repair, XXXXX opined that Weiner “can never truly get past this story. . . . But, that doesn’t mean he can’t star in a reality show or host a program on CNN.” That makes sense. Fox might have an opening for someone to present the Democratic side on issues. . . .

XXXXX has other thoughts on Anthony W.'s next career move, but I think I'll leave that for the two of them to discuss.

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Anthony W. calls it quits: Mass murderers move to boot liar off island

From The Hollywood Reporter (seems somehow appropriate):

Anthony Weiner to Resign:
How the Networks Are Covering

ABC will air the congressman’s press conference live, CBS will not break daytime programming.

Rep. Anthony Weiner is expected to resign Thursday following weeks of criticism after he sent nearly-nude photos of himself to women on Twitter.

He will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. ET.

ABC News will air a special report when Weiner holds his news conference to announce his resignation. George Stephanopoulos will anchor from ABC News Headquarters in New York. He will be joined by ABC News senior political correspondent Jon Karl and 20/20 anchor Chris Cuomo. Stephanopoulos also appeared Thursday morning on The View to discuss the Weiner news as well as the field of GOP presidential candidates.

CBS will not break into daytime coverage to cover Weiner's press conference, the network said.

NBC News will provide affilicates with an optional special report anchored by Brian Williams. MSNBC will also cover the press conference live on both TV and its website.

CNN will take Weiner's press conference live. Wolf Blitzer will anchor it, along with John King and Gloria Borger, the network confirmed to THR. . . .

[Don't forget to click to enlarge.]

by Noah

Did he jump or was he pushed?

They booted Weiner for lying? But, but, I thought lying is the official language of Washington! I coulda sworn!

Maybe Congress should just create an annual Wilbur Mills Award For Sexual Weirdness. Mills, for those who don’t know or don’t remember, was the 65-year-old Congressman (and a very powerful one at that) whose secret party-animal lifestyle got outed when he was caught drunk and disorderly with stripper Fanne Foxe after she went for a dive into the Potomac Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial.

Jefferson was not available for comment, nor was Sally Hemings.

This post is about perspective so let’s get one thing straight first: If anyone thinks that Weiner Boy is the only member of Congress or our government to do what he did (or something very similar), then I have a bridge to sell them, for mucho dinero. In fact, I strongly suspect that a good deal of the high level of outrage being expressed by Weiner’s colleagues is more about him blowing their cover and then lying to them (and us, but mostly to them) about it all than what he actually did.

As it is, in Congress groping pages is OK. It’s expected. It’s part of joining the boys' club. Sometimes, as in the case of Rep. Gerry Studds, it goes a lot further, even with minors. All Studds got was a censure, probably as much for getting caught as anything else. Studds served, and served productively, for 20 more years. Senator David "Diapers" Vitter got a standing ovation -- and, you can bet, several requests for his prostitute’s phone number and rate card, if they didn’t have it already. Weiner? Lying? If Weiner had sired a son with the maid in the master bedroom while the wife was out shopping, Washington would give him a standing ovation, too! But sexting? Ooooh no, that’s a big no-no; too traceable!

Just a thought #1:

I bet the last three weeks have seen the burning of a mega-bonfire’s worth of private VHS tapes in the back yards of past, present, and would-be congresspersons; computer file dumping too. In fact, I bet the latest sport among congressmen and senators is seeing who can make their cell phone skip the most on the Potomac surface before it sinks to the muck on the bottom.

I suppose we shouldn’t be shocked that a politician would run afoul of a social media tool and manage to unwittingly go public with his true nature. It’s happened before. The case of Virginia Sen. George Allen being caught in a YouTube moment is a classic example. It’s no surprise that a class (and I use that word with irony) of true dodos has no conception or understanding of how social media have changed our lives and changed what any of us can get away with at various moments in time.

The people in Washington are especially insulated from reality. They prove it on an hourly basis whether through tweets or in front of the TV cameras. Rep. Eric Cantor (aka Soulless Man) is probably the best case in point. It’s utterly fascinating to watch some of these people for whom nihilism in the service of their corporate masters is the only plane of existence they know.

Those who govern us live in an alternate universe, a big Beltway fraternity house where the only world they know is misshaped right down to their thoughts by their own amorality and soullessness, the agenda-mongering of wingnut media outlets like Politico and Fox, and the sociopathic likes of the heads of entities like Bank of America, Exxon, and Goldman-Sachs, or whoever is stuffing their pockets with cash at any given moment.

All real common sense and common decency and all humanity have been removed from the overwhelming majority of these people who govern us. In the case of people like Cantor, it was likely never there. Cretinous corporate beelzabubbas like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu sold theirs for cash and future considerations. John Boehner has taken the payments but probably has some little bits of a charred soul or at least a conscience that he is obviously at war with. I say that because, as much as I dislike the man, I can see that even he doesn’t believe half the crap that comes out of his mouth. He reminds me of Arlen Specter, as he cooks up single-bullet theories of tax code and economics that never did and never will cure any ills.

In short, they are nearly all very shallow people who make us suffer from their cases of arrested development and bad character. They are 10-year-olds trapped in adult bodies. One of them is called Anthony Weiner and he’s willfully run into some sort of a Twilight Zone version of Lord of the Flies called Washington, DC, more specifically Congress.

I’ve always said that Congress is nothing but a bunch of overgrown, arrogant frat boys. The kind of thing that Weiner did is what people who join frats do, when they’re not ritualistically paddling each others’ bare butts, that is. Based on what I have witnessed, being in a fraternity has everything to do with trying to address insecurities about your smarts to advance in life and insecurities about your manhood, whether it’s drinking vast quantities of alcohol and then chasing girls around campus (funny how they have to imbibe all that booze just to raise their level of interest), sucking up to the nearest alpha male, or tweeting lewd pix of yourself to, interestingly enough, college girls even when you’re over 40. Shall we dub this Peter Pan Pervo Syndrome (PPPS)?

At American University, my alma mater in Washington, DC, the big fraternity-boy activity was to get drunk and naked and run around in the courtyard between the two largest girls' dorms, puking all over the place. Very impressive. Many of those frat boys, at least the ones that managed to somehow graduate, ended up putting on a snappy suit and going to “work” in government. Like attracts like. One hand washes the other. Whatever. Arrested adolescent development as a lifestyle: Washington defined.

Just a thought #2:

If you are going to be judged to be too outspoken, you better be clean. You will be targeted. Clinton, Spitzer, and now Weiner, just for three. I’m not on board with the idiocies and obvious narcissism of any of these three jerks, but the idiocies aren’t the main reason for their troubles. The idiocies were just there to be used as a means to an end. These guys stupidly and arrogantly made it easy for their enemies. With Clinton, there really was a vast right-wing conspiracy, and a well-funded one. He wasn’t the first or last to do what he did, but he had more people out to bring him down. Being a centrist just isn’t conservative enough in a universe of Heritage Societies and Birchers like the Koch Brothers.

As for Spitzer, he was about to go after Wall Street again. To the Street, it was horrendous enough when Spitzer was the NYS Attorney General. Once he was governor, he had to go. Wall Street wanted him out of the way so they could remain unchecked.

In the case of Weiner, he was a loud and highly visible advocate of progressive causes such as single-payer health care. He was a top advocate in the movement, and you can bet that he was a thorn in the side of Democratic “leadership” at least half as much as he was a thorn in the side of the Repugs. Don’t think for a second that the Dems aren’t happy to see him go, for more than one reason.

If you don’t have a secret or a character problem, people in Washington don’t feel comfortable with you. It’s the same in any corporate environment. In the case of D.C., political opponents are left to just throw staggering amounts of money at you come election time. (See Alan Grayson.) If you threaten a status quo, the more money your enemies can throw, the better, but most people in politics have a usable secret, and they are often controlled by it. When they step too far out of the lines of the proscribed parameters, out comes the secret and down they go. It works on Righties too. Just ask Newt Gingrich about his resignation as House speaker. Ask Bob “Speaker for a Day” Livingston too.

It’s called politics: a brand of so-called civilized warfare. I’ve been amused for years that as soon as Larry Flynt started offering big money for provable sex scandals involving congressmen and senators, two speakers resigned within days of each other and Bill Clinton was no longer on the fast track to being forced from office. Remember that “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” thing? Suddenly, you coulda heard a pin drop in Washington. Sometimes it’s a beautiful thing when politicians suddenly shut the hell up.

Now ask yourself if it’s easier for a corporation or a bank to control a politician who is in the closet or out of the closet. Type of closet doesn’t matter. It’s about who knows the secrets and who knows who knows the secrets. Votes aren’t for sale just for money. “Nice deal ya got goin’ here. Sure would be terrible if anything were to . . . well, you know.”

There have been numerous players in the Weiner story. For instance, Bill O’Reilly. I had to marvel at the ability and hypocrisy of O’Reilly, a man who chose to be a tool for corporate fascists, just like a call girl dressing up like a nurse or a Catholic schoolgirl for a client. There he was, tsk-tsking about Weiner when the story really got going. Well done, loofah boy! Smell the hypocrisy! Kiss it. Go ahead, kiss it, you worthless little boy! I wonder what fraternity he was in.

Then there’s the creep who targeted and uncovered Weiner’s stupidity and poured gas on the fire in the first place: twisted muck-diving crap-stirrer Andrew Breitbart. This time he might have deserved an apology, after Weiner attacked him in the way that he did. After all, he really did have the photos that Weiner tried to spin doubt upon. Yeah, his digging for the photos and his motives are highly questionable, but his way of asking for an apology was completely classless, as classless as what Weiner did in the first place. In a way, they almost deserve each other; two sides of the same worn nickel. Anyway, Weiner ended up apologizing to him. Now it’s Breitbart’s turn to apologize, to Shirley Sherrod.

We can still wait a long time and no apology will be forthcoming. Meanwhile, I can visualize that this particular 10-year-old is probably laughing with joy that he has gotten so many people to say the word "weiner" so many times, especially the ones on TV. What that probably does for his own wiener, I’d rather not dwell on.

How sick and twisted is this whole sordid affair? It’s so sick and twisted that Andrew Breitbart was given a temporary coat of something that could pass for at least a patina of credibility. But that will be a land so alien that he won’t know what to do with it or how to operate in it. Just like Weiner and his Twilight Zone, Breitbart has created one for himself. His problem lies in the fact that he has sold himself into a life of working in a dual world of media and politics where credibility is an ephemeral illusion that waves through the fingers like a stale fart in a closed elevator. Washington is a world where credibility is rarely real, but much more often nothing more than a concept that is drawn up and marketed by huckster handlers. It’s intangible. It’s a mirage. Remember Daddy Bush wanting some of that “vision thing”? Like it was something you could just buy or a suit you could just put on?

Sooner or later, people like Breitbart usually do something that blows up in their faces. It’s all about the arrogance. Breitbart said he had more photos and they'ere more graphic, but “out of decency” to Weiner and his family he would not release them. At the same time, he used the threat of releasing additional photos to pressure the apology out of Weiner. So, all of a sudden, after releasing his first cache of pix, Breitbart gets a sense of decency? He would like to be considered a journalist, if only of the muckraking kind, but a better word might be blackmailer. (Of course, completely in character, Brietbart ended up finding a way to get his cherished naked photo out there despite the apology deal. Who’s worse in all of this; the disgusting, lying Weiner or the completely lacking-in-honor Breitbart?). It reminds me of those movies where the kidnappers get the ransom and then kill the hostage anyway, just for kicks.

My own feeling about O’Reilly, Weiner, and Breitbart is that it’s a shame that all three of them didn’t get the complete crap kicked out of them in the schoolyard, back in the fifth grade. Their social skills are sadly lacking.

Just a thought #3:

Suppose Monica and Bill had been tweeters and sexters. Time was on our side on that one. Forget about the blue dress. Just wait till everyone has portable technology that can see and hear through walls. Just wait till you can buy it at Radio Shack or Home Depot. Home Depot, of course, will also sell you the lead shielding you’ll need. It won’t stop tweet-hacking, though. For that, you’ll be needing a secure channel app for your tweets. I’m sure it’s being worked on. No doubt the Pentagon has it.

But, speaking of "shoulda gotten the crap kicked out of them in the fifth grade," Repugs and way too many Democrats in Washington called for Weiner to resign and did it with a level of hypocrisy that is nearly infinite. Why? Because Weiner sent his pix to women instead of guys? Is Miss McConnell feeling slighted? Or, as I said, was Weiner-boy guilty of throwing open a window on life in Congress and Congress wanted to slam that window shut, pronto?

Should Weiner have resigned for lying? At least his sex scandal is a sex scandal without real, physical sex. At the end of the day, whether or not he should have resigned should have depended on his constituents, redistricting, his effectiveness, and/or the judicial system. Even if prostitutes or something untoward with minors turns out to be involved, how would that make Weiner any different from many of his colleagues? Cocaine? Psychological problems? A simple case of frat-boy arrested development? Same thing. At this point, who knows? Now, here’s some real perspective!

Just a thought #4:

Who has caused more damage to America: Anthony Weiner or Roger Ailes? Sexting or Fox “News"? You decide.

Even some normal, decent people, such as Ed Schultz, also called for Weiner’s resignation, but why should Weiner have resigned in a D.C. world where people habitually kill people with a pen, the old-fashioned way; where other frat-boy lowlifes (Sen. "Diapers" Vitter comes to mind) defund education, destroy lives by defunding pap smears and defunding breast exams; where mine safety is deregulated and miners die as a result; where the FDA is gutted and food safety is deregulated, so eating your veggies can kill you; where an oil company isn’t called to account for the unnecessary deaths of 11 workers on a flaming platform; where John Boehner can openly hand out checks for votes on the House floor like it’s a parliament in some banana republic; where war criminals like Bush and Cheney get to serve out their full terms and laugh in our faces; where you can be free to become a de facto mass murderer by your actions and votes; where everyone around takes bribes from K Street, and you can just form a cult, rent a house on C Street, declare yourself a church to save money, and advocate for the murder of gay people while calling yourself “pro-life”?

I’m not condoning lying, but if lying is the reason that Weiner had to resign, then every politician in Washington who ever lied should also resign and go home to whatever hole they crawled or slithered out of in the first place. At the very least, that would do wonders for Washington rush hour traffic and air quality.

And, let’s not forget about Clarence Thomas & the Adventures of Long Dong Silver. By the standards set by Thomas, Weiner is now eminently qualified for the Supreme Court. Are tweeted pictures of Weiner in his black robe on the horizon?

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